Textile Heritage Museum

Since the Textile Heritage Museum’s opening in 2001, our founders have dedicated themselves to preserving the history of the North Carolina textile industry from its workers to the tools they used, the products they made, the villages they lived in, and the larger cultural and economic effects that stemmed from it all. We feel that this comprehensive picture of the textile industry can offer a window into better understanding an important part of our community and state identity that has largely been forgotten. With our mission in mind, we felt that there could be no better place for the museum than the mill store and office at the renovated Glencoe Mill Village. This location tied us directly with the history we fight to preserve. But, perhaps more importantly, it gave us direct contact with a community that believed in and shared our goal. Soon after our opening, support for the museum expanded outside of the mill village as former and current mills and mill owners, experts like professors from North Carolina State’s Textile Department, and County residents donated their time, skills, and funds to our cause. Today, the museum now stands with a lifetime of items on display. However, we are far from done, far from satisfied with our current accomplishments, far from achieving our main goal. Today, we constantly ask ourselves how we can expand our audience, how we can make the history of textiles increasingly relevant in today’s world, and how we can help shape the identity of Alamance County and North Carolina in the future.